Bob Herbert just threw down the gauntlet. Writing in today's New York Times, he spells out the case against the GOP with respect to anti-black racism. Daring to say in a national newspaper what many in the left blogosphere and in the black community have been saying for years, Herbert forcefully argues that the modern Republican party has at its foundations a solid rock of anti-black racism. Willie Horton was not an anomaly. The recent Senate vote on DC congressional representation was not a blip on an otherwise clear radar. The ad against Harold Ford last year was not a slip up. Since the civil rights and black liberation movements of the 1960s, the GOP has built its strength by systematically tapping into and fanning anti-black sentiment amongst white southerners and white suburbanites. Following the 1960s, Dixiecrats became Republicans, and the 'solid south' was born.
More after the jump...
One of the most powerful passages in Herbert's column has to do with the 1964 murder of three civil rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi:
Dr. Carolyn Goodman, a woman I was privileged to call a friend, died last month at the age of 91. She was the mother of Andrew Goodman, one of the three young civil rights activists shot to death by rabid racists near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964.
Dr. Goodman, one of the most decent people I have ever known, carried the ache of that loss with her every day of her life.
In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.
"I believe in states’ rights," said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.
We need to keep reminding our country of whose side Reagan took when he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1980. By saying that he 'believed in states' rights,' Reagan symbolically punched in the gut all black Americans, as well as all those Americans who just years ago had taken part in the greatest non-violent 'war against terrorism' this country has ever seen. The civil rights and black liberation movements were movements against white supremacist terrorism. Jim Crow was institutionalized, state endorsed, terror. Ronald Reagan, along with the party that he represented, was on the wrong side of history when he spoke at Philadelphia, Miss.
Instead of honoring the memory of all those who were killed by the Klu Klux Klan and its various offshoots, Reagan chose to honor the KKK and the Council of Conservative Citizens.
Instead of honoring the memory of children who were spit upon and called N****** when they attempted to go to school, he honored the memory of those white supremacist adults who did the spitting and hate-speaking.
Instead of honoring the memory of James Meredith, the first black student at Old Miss, Reagan honored the mob that tried to lynch Meredith during the first days of his freshman year.
Instead of honoring the memory of Emmett Till, he honored the men that brutally lynched Till (and who were still living as free men in 1980).
Instead of honoring Ella Baker, he honored David Duke.
In the final lines of his excellent piece, Herbert calls on black Americans to start speaking out forcefully against the racism of the Republican party.
Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of black leadership in the U.S. It’s time for that passive, masochistic posture to end.
What he says here applies not just to black folks, but to all who honor the memory of the civil rights and black liberation movements, and who long for a world free of racist violence.